I’m sitting on the porch,
and I’m listening.
To the crickets, the air conditioner, the cars.
I feel, at once, very at home.
Summers of Governor’s Place past, eating Otter Pops outside until our tongues turned a weird brown-gray color from the combination of different dyes.

I remind myself to look up, to look at the stars.
Yes, they’re still there—the same ones Katie and I used to “moonbathe” under, lying on the warm concrete of her driveway.

How have I forgotten to look at the stars?
“Look at the way the light is hitting the building!” was my constant refrain in Paris. I was always looking up, soaking it in.
But of course, in Paris, everything is beautiful.

Certainly, my life now has a lot of light to be seen: In the morning, when the sun pours into the stairwell through Isaac’s stained glass.
In the evening, as red bricks seemingly absorb the sunset’s oranges and reds and then reply with a cooling lavender just as the light begins to fade.

I want to see, I want to know every chirp, every dribble.
I want to inspect each speck of dust, greet every ant circling the sink in the kitchen.
I need to know every part of my life and the life happening within and around me.

The details may not always be the shine of a moonbeam cast upon a dreamy French rooftop —but in fact, was the color of our Popsicle tongues not also the exact same hue?

Look up
Look around
Take in where you’re sitting, where you’re living. Stop counting weeks—you cannot make a science out of spontaneity.

A train sounds in the distance and I pause because I want to invite that, too, to be a part of this moment.

I keep coming back to Cheryl Strayed’s “I’m going to put myself in the way of beauty.” . . .  I just think I’m going to look closer around me.